---
title: "Search: Advanced Operators"
slug: "search-advanced"
updated: 2025-12-08T20:43:34Z
published: 2025-12-08T20:43:34Z
canonical: "help.lexworkplace.com/search-advanced"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.lexworkplace.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Search: Advanced Operators

> [!NOTE]
> Applies To
> 
> LexWorkplace Starter, Core, Advanced

With LexWorkplace Search, you can use familiar search operators, such as AND, OR, and NOT to perform more precise, surgical searches across your matters, documents, and email.

In case you missed it, introduction to LexWorkplace Search is covered in the article: [Search: 101](/v1/docs/search-101).

Here’s a quick guide (with examples) to help you get the most out of LexWorkplace search.

## How to Use Advanced Search Operators

> [!NOTE]
> Operators in Caps
> 
> When typing operators such as AND, OR, and NOT, the operator must be in all-caps for LexWorkplace to interpret this as a search operator.

### 1. **Operators: AND, OR, NOT**

- **AND**: Narrows your search to include results that match **all** the specified terms.
  - Example: `apple AND orange` will return documents that contain both "apple" and "orange.”
- **OR**: Broadens your search to include results that match **any** of the specified terms.
  - Example: `apple OR orange` will return documents that contain either "apple" or "orange" (or both).
- **NOT**: Excludes results that match a specified term.
  - Example: `apple NOT orange` will return documents that contain "apple" but **not** "orange.”

### 2. **Parentheses Grouping**

- Use parentheses to group terms and operators to control how the query is processed.
- Example: `banana AND (apple OR orange)` will return documents that contain "banana" and either "apple" or "orange."

### 3. **Proximity Matches**

- You can search for terms within a certain distance from each other by specifying the number of words that separate them.
- Example: `"apple orange"~5` will return documents where "apple" and "orange" appear within 5 words of each other.

### 4. **Wildcards: * and ?**

- *****: Matches **zero or more characters** in a word.
  - Example: `appl*` will match "apple", "apples", "application", etc.
- **?**: Matches **a single character** in a word.
  - Example: `appl?` will match "apple" or "apply", but not "apples."

### **Caveats**

- It is not currently possible to consider both document contents AND the filename in the same Boolean query. For instance, `docx AND "John Smith"` will not return a `.docx` (this is in the filename) with "John Smith" in the contents.

## Video: Using Advanced Search

[Embedded content](https://www.youtube.com/embed/qrksK-ZadnQ)